24 Hour Food Mart closing

John Daily selling store after 20 years

By CHRIS MORRIS

Bill Dehn wasn’t surprised when he was told Daily’s 24 Hour Food Mart in New Albany was closing later this month. After 25 years of working at the store, his instincts told him it was going downhill.

“I hate to say it, but we basically became a large convenience store,” he said. “We can tell by the type of customer we now have. We just don’t have many people buying large baskets of groceries anymore.”

John Daily, owner of Daily’s, 419 Vincennes St., said he plans on closing the store later this month. The store and lot are listed for $419,000 and he said the contents are negotiable.

The sale will mark the end of 43 years in the grocery business for Daily, who began his career while he was still in high school. Before buying the store, he worked as store manager of the Vincennes Street location from 1974 to 1977 after Carl Austin purchased it.

“This is all I have ever done,” he said.

Austin sold Daily his first store in Jeffersonville in 1982 and he bought the 24 Hour Mart along Vincennes Street from Ron Moore in 1986. He closed the Jeffersonville store in January and will close the New Albany location this month.

“The store I always wanted was New Albany,” he said. “I managed it for three years when Carl bought it, and it has always meant something to me.”

However, competition and buying habits have changed over the past 20 years. Daily said when mega-retailers opened locally, and when Kroger became more aggressive — his business dropped off.

“It’s been tough the last five years,” he said. “Expenses keep going up and there has been no growth in volume. And the bigger boys — Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club — have hurt us.

“Plus there are convenience stores on every corner. It just made it harder and harder to compete.”

Daily said he told his employees two weeks ago about closing the store.

“Some already knew I was trying to sell it,” he said. “I have had a very good core group of employees in every department.”

Dehn said some of the customers he has talked to hope someone will buy the store and keep it going. So far, that hasn’t happened. The store will receive its last grocery truck today and a discount sale will begin next week.

“It won’t take long,” Dehn said for the store to run out of groceries.

He also said he will miss his co-workers.

“It takes a special person to work with the public,” he said

Some customers didn’t want to discuss the closing Thursday afternoon. Some did say, however, they hate to see the store leave because “it’s the only one in this area.”

Patricia Aguirre, who shops at the store daily, said she will now shop at the Spring Street Walgreens.

“I would like to see it turn into something,” she said of the old store.

The building was built in the late 1940s and was one of the first Kroger stores in the area. It became a Key Market before Austin purchased it in 1974 and turned it into 24-Hour Food Mart.

Daily, 60, has also made a career change. He recently opened a Cartridge World franchise in Clarksville. There are more than 400 outlets — which offer cartridge refills and clones that are cheaper than name-brands — in the U.S.

“I started looking for something else to do. I started looking for businesses for sale, checked the Internet and looked at different franchises,” he said. “Cartridge World is one of the fastest-growing franchises out there. And I still feel like I have a few years left in me.”

For the Record

• Daily’s 24 Hour Food Mart is located at 419 Vincennes St. in New Albany.

• John Daily purchased the store from Ron Moore in 1986.

• The store is listed by Schuler Bauer for $419,000

• The store was once operated by Kroger

• Carl Austin turned the store, which was a Key Market, to 24-Hour Food Mart in 1974. Austin later sold the store to Ron Moore.

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